Fokus på patientsikkerhed redder liv

I USA dør omkring 96.000 mennesker hvert år af en infektion eller en lægelig fejl på et hospital - og næsten alle disse dødsfald kunne være forebygget. Hospitalet Denver Health har sat fokus på patientsikkerheden og det har nu medført, at Denver Health har den laveste dødelighed blandt de medicinske centre i hele USA. Helt konkret betyder det med CEO for Denver Health Dr. Patricia Gabows egne ord at:

"...last year... 213 people walked out of here alive who would have been expected to die. So, that makes the statistic into a very personal aspect for people who, in fact, lives were saved."

Dr. Patricia Gabow forklarer også, hvad der var udgangspunktet for den øgede fokus på patientsikkerhed:

"It was about seven or eight years ago, and I said to my chief of medicine, you know, I can't stand this anymore. We're doing things just like we did when I was an intern more than 40 years ago. We have new drugs, we have new technologies, but, basically, the way we are delivering health care is pretty much what it was 40 years ago."

I videoen udtaler Donald Berwick chefen for det offentlige sundhedsvæsen i USA Medicare og Medicaid sig også om Denver Healths imponerende resultater:

"They are getting levels of performance that most of the rest of us in health care can only envy. The vast majority of their patients are either uninsured or Medicaid patients. They deal with a very, very stressed population. And they are proving that that kind of care isn't just kind of good enough. It can be the best care -- actually, the best care in the country. They are showing the rest of us what's possible."

Berwick, som også er tidligere leder af Institute for Healthcare Improvemet, ønsker ikke bare at reducere antallet af hospitalsinfektioner over de næste to år, men vil fra 2012 også gå over til at betale og straffe hospitalerne efter, hvor godt de klarer sig i forhold til patientsikkerheden. Og det er muligvis nødvendigt med straf og belønning ifølge
Professor Dr. Mark Earnest fra Denver Health:

"There is a perception that -- that smart, dedicated, and doing the things the way I have been trained to do it is as good as it can be. And, so, sometimes, it takes -- it takes us being pushed."

Earnest giver også et glimrende eksempel på, hvorfor det er problematisk, at hospitalerne bliver betalt for at udbedre hospitalsinfektionerne:

"If you took your car in and somebody repaired the car, and it broke down again next week, and the garage got paid to fix it the second time just the way they got it the first time, there is not a lot of incentive to get it right the first time."

Så det bliver rigtig spændende at se, hvad de politiske forandringer vil medføre af resultater.